I have these books - a set, from the 1910's, published by The Times, first editions, titled "The Times History of The War 1914" - a normal set is worth almost £1500, and I don't have a clue how much 1st runs are worth.

I was wondering...does anyone else have stupidly old books?

I have one old book, It is a 1910 edition of The Garden of Kama (love lyrics from India ) I'm not sure if it's worth much, if it is, I want to sell it.

I have read from "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith (1776), and I read the conclusion of "Social Problems" by Henry George (1883).

I grew up in a house full of old books, no doubt helped by the fact that my family had lived there since 1996, and didn't tend to throw much out!   Actually, most of my family and many of my friends have old books.

I have a Chambers's English Dictionary - Enlarged Edition, published in 1926.  

Definition of cat - a common domestic animal kept to devour mice.  

Tsss....not 1996!  1886!

I had a set of books very like those, Pika, but I gave them away on Freeshare last year, as I didn't have space for them!

I have "Hours of Devotion" from 1863 which is an English translation of "Stunde der Andact", a collection of German Jewish women's prayers.  I have never seen another copy -- this was a "reject" from a synagogue library going politically-correct in the 1980s.  (They did not like the old-fashioned language, I guess.)  Very nice prayers, my wife made a photocopy (the original is rather brittle) to use.

My uni's German department was giving some old books away "free to a good home." I could not resist two slim books from the late 1800s. All the text in the books is printed in a gothic script.

Gothic script arouses my interest, for one reason or another.

I have a re-printing of the original Narnia books, released in '96. Does that count? :p

I've got an extremely worn copy of the new testament in greek and notes in latin from 1724. It looks more like a piece of very old bread than a book. Former owners have scribbled in it but it only makes it more attractive to me.

Pika,.

I checked on AdAll and found a similar 1st ed of The Times History Of The War 1914, in 22 volumes. From a US seller; Josephine DiBenedetto. Price was 500USD. It's not 1500quid but it's still a bundle.

I have the first volume of "History of Russia" by George Vernadsky, third edition (1935). It's quite fascinating to read about the perspective of an historian on events of that time (the Russian Revolution, bolshevism, Stalin's rule, etc.) without our benefit of hindsight, as well as the interpretation of earlier historical events from a 1930's point of view.

It makes me wonder what we'll think when we, in 50 years' time, read books written now about current events. How will we have re-interpreted the history that we're witnessing now?

£1500 was the price quoted me by The Times' department that I contacted.

I have a copy of The Decline of the West by German historian Oswald Spengler dated to the late 1920s I picked up at a garage sale. It was the first attempt at a truly multi-cultural history that wasn't centered on the West.

The collection of Greenlandic myths and legends is my favourite.